To aid in understanding of the features and advantages in this disclosure, examples and scenarios described herein refer to brands, enterprises, products, services, and the like, as they pertain to marketing. As used herein, a brand may refer to any product, service, entity, person or the like that has marketing value. For example, an athlete, performer or other person may have an associated brand; a company or other enterprise may provide a service or a product, with the service or the product having a brand, etc. Thus, many celebrities may be considered a brand because of their appeal and ability to sell albums, tickets to shows, etc.; professional and amateur sports teams may be considered brands because of their appeal and ability to promote ticket sales, memorabilia sales, etc.; a television show may be a brand because of advertisers willing to pay for advertising minutes during the program; a soft drink may be a brand because people may choose to purchase the product instead of other similar soft drinks; an Internet service may be a brand because of its ability to draw advertisers or users, etc. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the list of possible brands is not limited to these few, and it should also be noted that brands may be more inclusive or more granular. For example, Ford™ is a brand, Ford Mustang™ is also a brand, and Ford Mustang GT™ is also a brand. Similarly, the Chicago Bulls™ as a team may be considered a brand, Michael Jordan as an individual may be considered a brand, Chicago Bulls™ merchandise having Michael Jordan's name/number imprinted thereon may also be considered a brand, Nike™ shoes as a product may be considered a brand, an Air Jordan™ shoe line made by Nike™ may also be considered a brand, etc. These are intended to be non-limiting examples only, and other concepts may be included within the teachings of this disclosure.
A brand is desirable for its ability to generate revenue. Accordingly, brand owners are always looking for new ways to exploit brand recognition, revenue, etc. One way for a brand to influence its revenue is to appeal to a desired audience, also referred to as “reach.” Advertisers try to maximize reach of any advertising efforts in order to increase sales for their brands. In an effort to maximize reach, advertisers generally target audiences that the advertiser hopes will associate with their brand or otherwise are likely to buy their product/service. In order to better target audiences, advertisers try to measure and analyze some portion of a population.
There are different approaches commonly used to measure and analyze populations in an effort to identify these target audiences. For example, Nielsen ratings are a well-known audience measurement system developed to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States. Nielsen television ratings are gathered in one of two ways. A first way involves viewer diaries which require a target audience member to self-record viewing or listening habits. While not being bound by theory, the general idea is that by targeting various demographics, the assembled statistical models provide a rendering of the audiences of any given show, network, and programming hour. However, these types of approaches require diligence and honesty on the part of each person in the targeted audience. A second approach relies on set meters. A number of homes are provided small devices for connection to televisions. Each set meter gathers the viewing habits of the home and transmits the information to a main server through a phone line. This approach is meant to allow market researchers to study television viewing habits on a minute-by-minute basis. Ideally, this approach is supposed to allow researchers to see the exact moment viewers change channels or turn off their TV. An obvious drawback to this approach is the possibility that a user clicks on a station and then walks away, falls asleep, or otherwise does not see the television programming. Another drawback is there is no certainty that the user is paying attention to the station. The user may be talking to someone, the audio may be turned down, etc. such that the user does not hear the television programming. There also is no reason provided for why the user selected the show. Perhaps the user selected the show because of a particular character, the plot, the location or setting the show occurs, the dialogue, or some other reason.
In addition to the set meters, individual viewer reporting devices, such as people meters, are intended to allow researchers to separate household viewing information into various demographic groups.
Brand owners are looking for ways to take advantage of their brands.